Mr. & Mrs. Gubbins & Sons

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

We will be leaving early Wednesday morning for Thanksgiving travels, so we wanted to leave you all with a post to enjoy over the break (including some video content, naturally).


Simon & Zoe enjoying dinner together

This past week we were able to have dinner with Jen, Adam, & Zoe. It was great to see them again--Zoe is now crawling all over the place! In fact, despite their almost-3-month age gap, I'd be willing to bet that Zoe will be walking before Simon. She's much more interested in standing, and is about ready to cruise at 8+ months old. Simon, while he can pull himself to standing, rarely bothers. As long as he can reach the toys, he's perfectly content on his knees, or sitting, or crawling around! Time will tell, I suppose :).

Babies' receptive vocabularies (what they understand) are much larger than their expressive vocabularies (what they can say)--actually, that's true throughout life, but its particularly evident in infancy (& when learning a foreign language). I teach this fact in my class, and now finally have a baby to see it first hand. Simon doesn't use any sounds/words in a consistent way that we could call a "first word"...but he uses four signs pretty consistently, and indicates in other ways that he sometimes understands what we are talking about. For instance:

Get Your Ball (22 seconds):



What is really fun about an older infant is that they are highly entertaining--to themselves, and others. Simon is pretty good about playing on his own (for a little while, at least) while we try to get things done around the house, and now that he can follow us around, he's a little less fretful when I leave the room, as he is able to come find me. He is finding all sorts of things, in fact, as he can open some drawers, cupboards and doors in the house now. Before bed Simon sometimes gets pretty giddy, when he is tired but still wants to play. The other night, for instance, he made up this fabulous game to play with Daddy (make sure you have the sound on, you really have to hear the giggles coming from this little boy!):

Simon's Game (almost 2 minutes):


(by the way, thanks to Ellie & Ben for the pjs...he was wearing a matching set, but at some point some sort of mess meant a half-change was required)

We wish everyone safe travels over the holiday. I'm sure we'll have some photos to post upon our return, as Simon is spending two days in the company of these two trouble-makers (I mean, these two sweet, adorable, always-well-behaved ladies):


Happy Thanksgiving!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Leaf Waving

...as per last post's description:

Leaf Waving (45 seconds):

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Long Week

Its been a long week since we last posted, with Andy gone deer hunting last weekend, and then Jess getting sick earlier this week. Now that things are relatively back to normal, Andy is taking off again this weekend!...but only for one night this time, and Jess is NOT getting sick!


Simon likes to do headstands...or is Andy that likes Simon to do headstands?

Before the traveling and illness, we had a visitor last week! Erich was in town for a conference and came over for dinner on Wednesday. (For those of you not familiar, Erich went to Valpo with Jess.) As always, it was great to see him--next time we're hoping we get to see Susan, too! Simon enjoyed meeting Erich as well--usually I'd say Erich's smile and charming personality win people over, but for Simon, all it really took was wearing this button-down shirt. He just couldn't get enough of those buttons (and I'm sure the smile and charming personality didn't hurt...). (Hope you enjoy Mexico City, Erich!)

Erich & Simon

We've had some snow this past week--nothing major yet, just a few light dustings. One day it did stick around on the ground until afternoon, though. I'm sure in no time we'll have some photos of Simon in the snow, so I'd better post a few more fall photos before crunchy leaves are distant memories!

Welcome home from work Daddy

Andy discovered that Simon has developed a unique way of playing with the leaves. Generally, he will pick up and explore them, eventually selecting one--when he has one, he'll turn it so that he has grabbed it by the stem, and then he'll wave it around like crazy. If you hand him a leaf stem first, he'll grab it by the stem and start waving. If you hand it to him leaf first, he'll take it and turn it until he is holding the stem before he starts waving it. Why does he do this? We don't know...but clearly he's got a lot going on in that little brain! (Which we already knew, but thought we'd mention in case any of our readers out there doubt the mental capacities of a 10-month old...)

The day Andy discovered this tendency of Simon's, he made sure to document the phenomenon on video...but unfortunately blogger isn't cooperating right now, so I can't upload it :(. I'll try again in another post--for now, you'll just have to imagine the leaf waving!

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Our Little Dragon

A few photos from Simon's first Halloween!

hmmm...what is this large thing with holes in it that Mom is so excited about?

Great-grandpa Roy grew this pumpkin, Mom carved it into a jack-o-lantern, and Simon posed for the picture :)

No trick-or-treating for this little dragon, just a few visits with friends

Here you can see the lovely tail a little better...
Many thanks to Ben & Ellie for passing on this awesome dragon (or dinosaur) costume! It was a bit tight on Simon, who is just a month or so older than Ben was when he wore it. But we got it on just fine--the only 'alteration' we had to make was having Simon wear some thermal jammies underneath, as its a lot cooler here in MN than it was in Cambodia!

Happy Halloween from the Gubbins family!